


A Vow to Break

by WildKitte



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bakeneko, Falling In Love, Fantasy, Fantasy Haikyuu Week, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 19:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14409048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildKitte/pseuds/WildKitte
Summary: Over the summer they fall in love.Fantasy Haikyuu Week Day 2 - Asian Mythology





	A Vow to Break

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Nene for all the support

 

”You sure you’re not actually a _nekomata_?”

Yasufumi grinned and swished his twin tails in amusement.

”You’re free to decide that yourself,” he said, eyes twinkling, moving around Ittei with smooth movements, like a cat. Ikkei swallowed and braced himself.

”So what are you going to do with me? Possess me? Curse me?”

Yasufumi burst in laughter, and Ikkei’s heart skipped at the sound; it was free, and beautiful, and surely the cat youkai was bewitching him because he desperately wanted to coax out that sound again.

”You’re funny,” Yasufumi smiled and slung an arm around Ikkei’s shoulders. He leaned so close to Ikkei that their cheeks were mushed together, and Ikkei flushed deeply. He could feel Yasufumi’s breath on his face and his heartbeat picked up – he was sure the youkai could hear the rush of the blood in his veins. But the youkai just pinched his cheek and then stepped away, his fingers brushing the nape of Ikkei’s neck, and he shivered.

”You should come again tomorrow,” Yasufumi said.

 

He knew he shouldn’t.

But he would.

 

*

 

A summer went like this:

Ikkei accidentally stumbled across a cat youkai in the forest – a _bakeneko_ , out there to trick and tease people, maybe eat them – who took a liking to him, and slowly, so did Ikkei.

The locals knew to avoid the forest. There were weird creatures there, ready to trick and kill whoever poor soul got lost too deep in its depth. Ikkei was not a local, so he didn’t listen, and soon found himself neck-deep in trouble.

 

Or maybe it was unfair to call Yasufumi _trouble_ , exactly.

The youkai was mischievous. He clearly missed attention and company, and day by day Ikkei started noticing how happy and wide his smiles grew whenever they met, and how they dimmed down to a melancholic gaze once Ikkei had to go – but he also loved playing tricks. Vanishing and leaving him on an unfamiliar path, suddenly dousing him with water, dropping bugs in his clothes or just generally messing with him… It was a lot to deal with but Ikkei couldn’t find it in himself to really be mad at him.

That didn’t stop him from yelling at the youkai and chasing the laughing man through the forest until his feet were sore.

No, Yasufumi wasn’t trouble. He was a breeze of fresh air in the blazing and oppressing summer heat. Yasufumi would lead him to the forgotten shrine deep in the forest, covered in moss and left behind. Ikkei made his mission to clean and rebuild it – he spent days scrubbing away the moss and dirt, fixing it until it at least resembled a proper shrine, cleaning the interior, putting up an altar he built himself.

”I’ll bring offerings,” he promised. The look Yasufumi gave him was impossibly soft, and tender, and Ikkei could feel his cheeks heat up, like they so often did these days.

”This is more than enough,” Yasufumi said in an uncharacteristically quiet manner, his hands clenched in fists. Ikkei only later realised how badly the youkai had been trembling, how his eyes had shined, and there was a tug at his chest, a splash of deep longing and adoration.

 

*

 

Over the summer Yasufumi fell in love.

He had been alive for a long time, seen humans come and go. They were afraid of him, of course they were, why wouldn’t they – but of course Yasufumi would have the luck to stumble upon the one simple idiot who did not fear him.

 

Ukai Ikkei; that was his name. Yasufumi had wanted to scold him for giving away his name so freely, but couldn’t quite find it in himself to do it. After Ikkei left, before the sun went down and left the forest enveloped in thick, deep darkness, Yasufumi sat by the shrine and tried out the syllables, spoke out the name that had become so dear, and it lulled his restless soul to sleep.

Ikkei was a handsome young man. Strong brow, sharp eyes, body toned – but especially Yasufumi loved his smile, his laughter, his short temper, the occasional tender looks thrown his way, how sometimes Ikkei would sit down next to him and lean on him, his head resting on Yasufumi’s shoulder as Yasufumi played with his fingers.

 

There was a certain softness in their love.

It was in the tentative first kiss under the shade of the trees; it was in the way their hands lingered as they said goodbye; it was in the way Ikkei was able to whisper sweet nothings to him as they lied on the forest floor, wrapped in each other’s embrace; it was in the way Yasufumi’s heart soared as the morning came and soon he would see his human again.

 

As a youkai, he had never really felt love before. It was an emotion more associated with humans, not something he ever though he’d be able to comprehend, not to mention _to have_. From his home, the safety of the forest, he observed people – watched them bond and sometimes fall in love, and it was just as fleeting as their lives, so he paid no mind to it. Love was an abstract concept, it was not something he needed to know or craved for himself. There was no longing to have someone by his side, there was no burn in his chest or the ache of separation. Love was for humans, love was for mortals, love was for beings that weren’t supposed to last, weren’t supposed to interact with the world that was his.

Ukai Ikkei was never really good at following instructions.

 

So Yasufumi fell in love, all caution thrown to the wind as the summer wrapped him in warmth that he thought would surely never leave.

 

*

 

”Do you think,” Ikkei asked once, ”that after I die, I’ll be born again to meet you?”

It would be so unfair to leave Yasufumi alone. Yasufumi, laying next to him on the forest floor hummed.

”I’m not sure. I guess it’s possible.”

”Would you wait for me?”

Yasufumi stilled, and then rolled over to rest his head in the junction between Ikkei’s shoulder and neck and left a kiss there. It burned there, in his heart, a promise: _of course I will. Of course I will, I will wait until the world ends, I’ll spend lifetime after another with you, like this, in love like this_.

 

Maybe that jinxed it, but Yasufumi had no idea as Ikkei rolled over him and captured his lips in a kiss sweet like honey and softest white lie, his hands sure and gentle on his hips and after that Yasufumi just let himself to sink, in the pleasure, in the deception, into the heat and the shade of the trees and the ring of the windchimes and the long, everlasting summer.

 

*

 

”I have to go back to the city,” was how summer ended.

Ikkei saw the heartbreak in his lover’s eyes and there was nothing he could do, just hold his hand tighter.

”I’ll wait,” Yasufumi said and Ikkei knew he was leaving part of his soul here, in these warm and patient hands. He was leaving his life in the forest, in this temple; he was leaving his worship to what was technically a demon, completely the wrong place to place his affection – but it was so true, and so was the longing, so was the vaning warmth of the sun, the silence of cicadas in the trees.

”I will return,” _to you, always to you, no matter how long it takes_.

Yasufumi’s smile was sad, and the final kiss lingered on his lips for days.

 

*

 

Next summer came.

So did autumn.

So did winter.

Another spring, another summer.

Yasufumi waited by the shrine, his arms empty and aching with phantom pain.

 

He should have known.

Human heart was fickle – they fell in and out of love, they forgot and moved on, their lives too short to waste on waiting.

The shrine was covered in moss and leaves once again, stubborn weeds slithering their way around the wood and pillars, and eventually, they crackled and crumbled with age. Not one caring hand to sweep it clean, to scrub it sacred, rebuild it with care.

With foolish hope he waited under the stars, watching them burn and twinkle; with longing in his soul he endured the rain, with patience the scorching, oppressing heat.

 

The forest remained silent, his love lost somewhere in the world.

 

Yasufumi wished him happiness, and after a decade he left, leaving his heart in the shrine, in the shade of the trees.

 

He refused to break, for he knew humans, and only wished him happiness and luck, long life and peaceful death; to know love again, and succumb in it.

 

*

 

”I got lost on the way,” Ikkei said.

He was sitting by the shrine – his face was rough and wrinkled, and he was thinner, his muscles not as toned as before, his hair grey and Yasufumi could hear the troubled beating of his heart.

”I promised to wait.”

”So you did.”

”I’m sorry,” Ikkei said, and his smile was sad – it was still the same, and warmth spread in Yasufumi’s chest.

”You should be,” he grinned. ”Did you find love?”

Ikkei grinned back. ”I did. I have kids. And a grand kid.”

”I’m happy to hear,” and he meant it.

 

”I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

”I wouldn’t say it was wasted. Ten years maybe.” Yasufumi tilted his head. ”Will you stay this time?”

Ikkei nodded. ”I bought a house. The brats better visit me.” He then rubbed his neck and flushed, and it was just as beautiful as it had been 40 years ago. ”If you don’t mind loving an old man like me.”

Yasufumi shook his head, his twin tails swishing, and it was like he could never stop smiling ever again.

”You’re funny,” he said, eyes twinkling. ”You should stay.”

  


_fin_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a kudos and comment if you like :3
> 
> twitter [@wildkitte](https://twitter.com/wildkitte)  
> tumblr [@wildkittewrites](http://wildkittewrites.tumblr.com/)


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